Lady Chants drop Big South opener to Lady Eagles, 3-2

The Coastal Carolina women’s soccer team fell into an early hole in its Big South Conference opener Thursday night and a late comeback attempt came up short in a 3-2 defeat to Winthrop at Eagle Field in Rock Hill.

Sophomore forward Kacey Kelley and freshman midfielder Fia Jonsson scored unassisted goals for the Chanticleers (3-5-0, 0-1-0 BSC), who lost consecutive games for the first time this season. Winthrop, meanwhile, notched its third straight win and improved to 4-4-0 overall and 1-0-0 in the conference.

Jonsson’s second tally of the season cut the Eagles’ lead to 3-2 in 85th minute. The goal occurred less than a minute after the Chants took junior goalkeeper Megan Spencer off the field in favor of an extra attacker, with senior Cami Skladany as the last line of defense. Down in Winthrop’s half of the field, Jonsson made a cut toward the middle past a Winthrop defender and put a left-footed shot from just outside the box into the far corner.

Coastal was able to get one more shot off before time expired, but it went wide off the foot of freshman Meagan Borger with under three minutes to play.

Winthrop gained control by scoring a pair of goals in the span of one minute on consecutive shots to lead 2-0 before the 10-minute mark.

However, the Chants dominated the play for a 20-minute stretch after that. Coastal recorded the next eight shots and put three of them on goal. Kelley found the back of the net in the middle of the flurry, attacking the defense and putting a 25-yard shot into the top corner to cut the deficit to 2-1 in the 26th minute.

Winthrop, though, regained its two-goal advantage on a header in the 62nd minute.

The Chants finished with a 15-13 advantage in shots, with junior Christina Stern notching a team-high four. The Eagles had an 8-6 edge in shots on goal and totaled eight corner kicks, to Coastal’s three. Spencer made five saves in over 83 minutes of play.